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Hi All,
I have a Victron Quattro with a Venus GX. We have solar panels and mains input (from a hydro-electric system). The amount of electricity from the hydro fluctuates and at the moment is very low as it is so dry. I would really like to set the current limit so that once the current limit is reached the power is then drawn from the battery. I can't work out how to do this. Can you help?
Thank you.
Leander
Hi @Leander
There's an 'Input current limit' setting in the GX you can lower. Whether that works is conditional on the Quattro's internal setting limiter being set to 'Overruled by remote'. Also, there's a lower limit that's allowable if you have PowerAssist enabled, and you'll likely see it default to that if you try to go too low.
If you need to access the Quattro directly to do it, then make sure you tick that Remote box.
Hi JohnC,
Thank you so much for your speedy reply. I've found the Victron Community to be absolutely brilliant.
Actually to be completely honest I was asking on behalf of a friend who is on the same hydro network as us. They have a Quattro and we have a Multiplus. I've let him see your answer and I hope he can get his system sorted out.
We have been setting our AC Current Limit for out Multi using VE Config on the laptop. However we've just purchased a Victron digital multi control. It's a bit like the old Phoenix multi control. However we found that we couldn't set the current limit lower than 3.5A. Having read your reply above, I've just gone and disabled Power Assist using VE Config and now I can reduce the current limit down to 0.5A I currently have it set at 1.5A as that's more or less the amount we're limited to take from the hydro at the moment until we get more rain.
I was just wondering is it ok to disable the Power Assist function? Will we be able to use the system as we normally do?
Thank you.
Leander
Hmm. 1.5A isn't much power, and without PowerAssist that's all you'll have. I don't actually know what happens when you exceed that with loads, but take care.
Maybe if you have larger loads periodically, try switching off AC-IN externally, and the Multi/Quattro should return to batt inverting only at full power. When your loads recede, renew the AC-IN and it should charge the batts with whatever of that 1.5A it has to spare.
Would be interested to hear how you and your mate go with this.
Thank you @JohnC,
I've just put on a 1kw load (an electric kettle) to see what would happen and the green mains on light on the Multi started to flash. In the Multiplus manual it says that this means "The AC input is switched through. The AC output current is equal to the preset maximum input current. The charge current is reduced to 0".
I'm taking this to mean that all electricity used to power the kettle is coming from the hydro mains grid (this can happen but if I take to much I'll trip everyone on site...and won't be popular!) and none is being taken from the batteries or being used to charge up the batteries.
It's funny because when we use VE Config to set the current limit we seem to be able to go down to 1A with no problem at all? I'm not sure why this would be.
That's a resistive load. Can you see what the Multi output is showing in V/A/W?
I just tested a (old) VEConfig file and it does show 1.0A as the min. But I bet if I uploaded it that wouldn't stick with PowerAssist enabled.
Past my bedtime, see you tomorrow.. :)
